Hunting for Sayville’s history

Recreate the dance from “The Breakfast Club.” No, this isn’t a dare. Nor is it a challenge from an ‘80s movie board game. It’s one of 71 different “missions” from the library’s first-ever Discover Sayville scavenger hunt, which wraps up on Aug. 14 after a six-week run that coincided with the Summer Reading Program.

These are the last few days of the scavenger hunt before results are tallied and those who completed are called in to claim their prize; anyone who completed all of the missions is considered a winner. Winners get a Sayville-themed goody bag.

The scavenger hunt was created by two librarians who wanted to recreate an experience they saw in another part of Long Island, but with a Sayville twist.

“I saw through a Facebook post that the Southold Historical Society was going to be having a scavenger hunt. And then I found out Marianne wound up going and doing it with her kids,” said Stephanie DiChiara, local history librarian for Sayville library.

“Marianne” is Marianne Ramirez, DiChiara’s colleague, and a teen librarian for Sayville library. Ramirez said seeing all of the places highlighted in the Southold scavenger hunt gave her the idea to bring it to Sayville.

“I always drove through Southold, but never stopped to appreciate the town. My sister and I, and my 8-year-old and 5-year-old sons, all spent a Saturday running around the town and having so much fun together. I knew I had to plan one for Sayville Library because we have such a great town and there’s so much to appreciate in it,” she said.

The duo wanted to focus on Sayville’s history and landmarks—creating challenges, also known as “missions,” that would bring participants to these locations. Missions require either video or photo evidence, or they may require participants to answer a question.

The scavenger hunt is mainly a team sport, with most participants signing up in teams rather than attempting it solo. The hunt wasn’t marketed toward any particular age, and, of the 60 teams registered, ages vary from kids, to teens, to adults and beyond. Participants do not have to be library cardholders; in fact, visitors to Sayville are especially welcomed to participate.

“We figured we get a lot of people that come from out of town, and even people that come from around town and from a few towns away that want to hang out here,” said DiChiara.

In order to highlight library’s offerings, 30 missions take place inside the library. One example is a mission to find a book that can be borrowed. Other missions include taking a video at the old opera house on Candee Avenue (which is also the old Suffolk County News offices). DiChiara said it was difficult to narrow down mission locations because there are so many great places to visit in Sayville.

“There are 71 missions total. We started by making a spreadsheet of all the places we’d have people go or the things we’d have people do. Sayville has museums and monuments, so there’s so much here. And our spreadsheets kept going up and up. We went to 30 missions, then 50 missions and then at 70 missions we were like, ‘Ok. That’s enough,’ ” said DiChiara.

Although the scavenger hunt has been a hit with some residents, Ramirez isn’t sure it’ll be back next year.

“I don’t think we’ll do it again next year, but we put so much work into it, so maybe it will make an appearance again eventually,” said Ramirez.

This is the last week to participate in the scavenger hunt before the event closes and winning teams are given their prizes. To participate, head to the library for a QR code that will give you access. DiChiara estimates that teams looking to complete the hunt all at once may be able to do it in about two hours.

“We did a trial run and it took two hours,” she said.